For a long time, endeavors have been made in the technical world to develop firearms which produce as little sound as possible when being fired. Through these efforts, silencers were developed which actually were pressure-relief devices for the powder gases, being of variable length, and frequently divided into various segments, such silencers to be screwed onto the front end of the barrel. By means of these silencers, it is true, the sound level of the bang can be considerably reduced; however, the sound level of the bang is by far above that of the general noise level so that the firing of a weapon can distinctly be heard even from a large distance. In addition, the size and the weight of small arms is considerably increased by such silencers, which applies particularly to hand-held weapons where the length of the silencer can considerably exceed the length of the barrel so that the total length of the weapon is more than double the length of the weapon itself.
The requirement for a weapon which produces as little sound as possible is not satisfied by compressed air weapons since these compressed air weapons also produce a considerable sound when fired, and since, furthermore, the projectiles do not have sufficient penetration.
In view of these facts, the invention is concerned with the problem of creating small arms, and particularly a pistol with associated ammunition, which practically do not produce any perceivable sound when fired, without the necessity of extending its barrel by a silencer, or of rendering the weapon difficult to handle for other reasons.